Did this really happen?

It’s tough to tell, these days, because now AI generates even videos.

What a sign of the times!

But can they bear legitimate messages?

In the case of a YouTube post about a woman (allegedly) named Julie Morgan Stevens, 18, of Milfield, Oregon, who on a night in February “died” for nine minutes and thirty-two seconds.

We couldn’t find “Julie,” nor, that we can tell, is there a “Milfield” in Oregon. The closest we can come is Mill City.

There is a “Millfield” known for its rural setting and properties in Athens County, Ohio, along Oregon Ridge Road. Did the narrator simply mess that up?

At any rate, back to the reported experience.

Cause?

A car accident she caused by checking social-media on her cell phone. It’s said her car hit a tree while she was looking at her device.

And whatever the veracity or lack thereof of this YouTube entry, it brings up a few needed points, starting with how beholden we all are now to that tiny supercomputer we can no longer go anywhere without.

Did we say “supercomputer”?

An iPhone 15 or Samsung Galaxy S24 can execute over fiifteen trillion operations per second thanks to advanced processors like the A17 Pro or Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

This means a smartphone has more processing power than all of NASA’s computing resources combined during the Apollo moon missions.

That little device in your purse or pocket can do more than a room-sized computer in the 1990s.

“Julie” had her two or three hundred followers on Instagram, which “seemed like everything that mattered back then.”

Her phone had buzzed with a notification (a post by someone she “liked”), and that drew all her focus.

“Five seconds looking at my screen. That’s all it took.”

The next thing she knew, there were horrendous sounds around her (metal crunching) and then she found herself floating.

That certainly sounds like an array of other such experiences.

She “watched” emergency responders pulling her out of his smashed car, putting her on a stretcher, and trying to revive her.

Yet to her, everything suddenly felt okay, like she had never felt before.

There was the famous “light.” It was of great brightness but, as we also commonly hear, didn’t bother the eyes. Instead it “felt like the love of everyone who had ever loved me all at once.”

That’s when she allegedly saw Jesus.

He was Light itself, somehow shaped like a person.

His Eyes were “filled with more love than I can describe.”

He knew every single thing about her–every action and thought.

But it wasn’t frightening.

When He said her name, we are told, “it was like music, like He’d been waiting to talk to me my whole life.”

There were tears of relief and recognition; of having been lost her whole life without knowing it.

“Walk with Me,” He supposedly said. “There’s something you need to see.”

He showed her scenes on what seemed like “thousands” of floating screens.

On them she could see young people her age, all staring at their phones.

Her eyes were drawn to one particular screen showing a gel of about fourteen studying her phone and looking sad as “dark shadows” gathered around her.

What were the shadows, she asked Jesus?

“They feed on comparisons,” Jesus responded. “On envy. On self-hatred. On the feeling of never being enough.”

On another screen was a boy who looked “maybe twelve” playing a violent game, his face blank.

Is this all not only plausible but not something we have observed in various forms in these days?

Shadows again, feeding on rage and revenge.

She saw others–not just kids, but also addults–all connected to their phone but disconnected from others, and surrounded by dark shadows.

Those shadows were feeding on and growing larger with the dark emotions and thoughts they provoked.

These spirits have always been around, she claimed Jesus said, but never before have they had such easy access to minds and hearts.

She saw herself, scrolling through Instagram instead of sleeping, or starting at her cell phone during dinner while her mother was trying to talk to her.

Think back at the last time you were in a restaurant!

“You’re not pretty enough. Look at how much better their life is. Nobody really likes you. You need more ‘followers.’ You need more ‘likes.'”

The whispering of demons. Even if fiction, are there not profound messages? Noted one commented: “I deactivated my FB account and have no desire to reactivate. There is more peace and reality in my life.” You were not created to scroll your life away.

Oh, social media: isn’t it just everywhere, including the intricacies of our spirits? Now, Zuckerberg, mastermind of Facebook, wants everyone to wear computers as eyeglasses, seeing everything as “virtual,” interactin–he actually says this–more with AI than with people.

Now Julie saw what her staring at her phone had done: hospital scenes of her parents crying, her brothers slumped against or punching a wall.

Conversely, she was shown how when a young girl prayed, angels were energized and formed a shield around her. The shadow retreated.  Faces turned up to the sun, instead of down toward small screens. People reading actual books. Friends having real conversations. “Just one sincere prayer,” Jesus supposedly said. “That’s all it takes to activate Heaven’s protection.’”

But these days, with all our devices: who has time for prayer?

“Tell them I love them. Tell them I’m waiting to talk to them, if they’ll just look up from their screens long enough to listen.”